STARTUP — Stepping, spinning and swinging to a big-band beat spurred an unlikely romance here.
In 1949, a “good-lookin’” city girl who worked in a downtown Seattle highrise found herself kicking up her heels on the dance floor with an “awful cute” country boy who spent his days logging and farming the Sky Valley.
A lusty infatuation between two opposites turned to a lasting love that has endured almost seven decades.
On Valentine’s Day, Frank and Nancy Roesler are celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary at the old Startup gym. It’s where they first met and throughout the years, danced many nights away.
Frank, 84, first laid eyes on Nancy while he was on stage during his graduation from Sultan Union High School in 1949. The ceremony was held at the Startup gym because the high school had burned down.
“I thought she was kind of cute,” he said.
She noticed him from her seat in the front row, too.
“I thought he was awful cute,” she said. “But I was with my steady fellow.”
Nancy, 85, had come from Seattle to support her cousin, Dick Estes, a friend and classmate of Frank’s.
She’d graduated a year earlier from West Seattle High School and was working as an insurance claims adjuster to save money to study journalism at university.
“I always told him older women make better lovers,” she joked Monday at the couple’s tidy, memento-filled home along Sultan Startup Road.
After the graduates threw their caps into the air in Startup, the festivities moved to the Odd Fellows Hall in Sultan.
“I kept seeing this guy dance by and thought ‘he sure is cute,’” Nancy said, motioning to her husband.
As it turned out, her fellow had two left feet. Frank saw his chance and stepped in, despite that he too had a sweetheart.
“I was a pretty good dancer,” he said. “I think that’s why she took to me.”
After a night of twirling and twisting together, they parted ways.
It wasn’t until the next spring that their paths crossed again. Frank and his buddies were coming back from Wenatchee when they were asked to dig a car out of the snowbank near Stevens Pass.
“And there she was,” he said.
He got her out of the snow and on her way. They didn’t meet again until another year had passed.
In 1950, her cousin, Jack Estes and Frank showed up at her house during a trip to the city to pick up tractor parts.
“Frank started courting me then,” Nancy said. “He started calling and we ran up a horrendous phone bill.”
They couldn’t stand being apart. A few months later, Frank quit Everett Community College, sold his herd of sheep and bought a brand new a Plymouth sedan. That way he could see his sweetheart.
The Roeslers married on Jan. 5, 1951, with $50 between them.
To start their new lives together, friends and family gave the Roeslers silver, crystal and fine china. The fancy wedding gifts were rarely needed in their Startup home, where they’re still showcased behind glass in cabinets.
When they were first married, Frank worked a short stint as a riveter assistant at Boeing. The couple lived in a small apartment along West Seattle’s Alki Way.
Nancy could tell Frank missed farming because he kept planting bright nasturtiums in the window boxes. Soon, she knew she had to leave city life behind and take him home.
In the spring of 1952, they moved into a house along Sultan Startup Road near the farm Frank grew up on.
They lived there for 60 years before settling into a dusty-pink house across the road.
The spacious home is fashioned with Nancy’s paintings, family photos and keepsakes from the couple’s years together. They enjoy views of the mountains from the neatly trimmed lawn.
At first, Nancy said, she had trouble explaining where Startup was to her friends in Seattle. But soon she made new ones and settled into small town life.
“It didn’t take long for it to be home,” she said. “Home is where the heart is.”
After some struggle, she learned to drive a clutch, taking the Plymouth for a spin in the pasture. She never got the hang of milking cows but eventually learned to ride a horse.
Frank made his living as a logger. In the early years, he farmed raspberries and milked cows to get by on seasonal work in the woods. Sometimes they had to put groceries on a tab at the Startup Store.
Later, Frank started Roesler Timber Company with his father and two brothers. With green trucks loaded full of logs rumbling along U.S. 2, they grew the business to employ more than 100 people in the Sky Valley.
The Roeslers eventually opened a shake and shingle mill. Housing materials were loaded into boxcars and shipped across the country.
Nancy worked for a bank and as a proofreader at a newspaper until they decided to start a family. The couple raised four children, Brad, Craig, Jeff and Nancy Jo, and now live with their wiener dog, “Penny.”
Frank served on the Sultan School Board, just as his father had before him and son did after him. Nancy documented the family history for their seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
“It’s something that should be put on paper so the youngsters can say ‘well how about that,’ ” she said.
Frank said his reasoning for starting a relationship with Nancy was simple.
“She was good lookin’, ” he said.
For Nancy, it was, of course, more complicated She chose Frank because she was impressed with everything about him, especially his stories about country living. He could drive a tractor and raise sheep.
“And he was awful cute,” she said. “It’s been a good life. I only left him one time.”
And her mother gave her right back, putting an end to that for good.
Through the years they stayed connected, waltzing, slow-dancing and two-stepping at their favorite spots, such as Seattle’s Trianon Ballroom and grange halls. Later, they evolved with the times, jiving and doing the twist.
“We’d stand and look at each other and wiggle,” Nancy said.
The couple is glad to see restoration underway at the long-neglected Startup gym so it can again serve as the center of the community. They’re having an open house there from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Sunday and the couple doesn’t plan to let Frank’s twisted ankle keep them off the dancefloor.
“If nothing else, we can stand there and wiggle a little bit, which is probably what we’ll do,” Nancy said.
The Roeslers said their relationship has given meaning to their lives and will see them through as they grow old. They vowed to stick by each other’s side until death forces them apart. And that’s what they’re going to do.
For the Roselers, there’s really no mystery to making love last.
“It’s no secret at all. I’m a forgiving woman,” Nancy said. “I forgave my husband years ago for not being Paul Newman and settled happily instead for the handsome guy with the Paul Newman blue eyes.”
Amy Nile: 425-339-3192; anile@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @AmyNileReports
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